Debian Weekly News – May 14, 2003

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Debian Weekly News
http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2003/19/
Debian Weekly News - May 14th, 2003
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Welcome to this year's 19th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for
the Debian community. Debian users in Virginia, USA, may get in
[1]conflict with the law by only installing a regular Debian package,
since it may be a [2]delict to own tools like [3]bulkmail or
[4]smartlist which can be used to deliver mass email or modify
regular mail headers.

 1. http://www.governor.state.va.us/Press_Policy/Releases/2003/Apr03/0429b.htm
 2. http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?031+ful+CHAP0987
 3. http://packages.debian.org/bulkmail
 4. http://packages.debian.org/smartlist

Update for DebConf 3 in Oslo. Tollef Fog Heen sent an [5]update for
DebConf 3, which will take place in Oslo, Norway, from July 18th to
20th, with DebCamp preceding it from July 12th to 17th. DebCamp will
be a work camp where urgent things like debian-installer or big mean
bugs will be worked on. Depending on the weather, the evenings will be
spent with barbecue, mosquitos and other fun things. HP and Lindows
thankfully sponsor this event. Interested people should [6]register
online.

 5. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0305/msg00002.html
 6. http://www.debconf.org/debconf3/registration/

Font Uglification after Upgrade. Andreas Tille [7]noticed rather ugly
fonts in status bars, menus and most importantly in Emacs, which makes
it nearly unusable. Ian Wienand [8]reported that the offending
package seems to be gsfonts-x11 and after its removal his fonts looked
as before. Branden Robinson [9]explained that the new Type1 Helvetica
font distributed with XFree86 looks ugly. Removing it or moving it at
the end of the font list solves the problem.

 7. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg00207.html
 8. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg00284.html
 9. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg00379.html

Additional Calendar Files. There has been a [10]discussion if Debian
should include a calendar file (with bsdmainutils or not) that would
contain Debian specific dates, such as release dates and days of death
of fellow developer. Three more public calendar [11]files could be
used by anybody interested in using calendar with some recent dates.
Bob Proulx [12]suggested to use a separate package with a cronjob to
inform users which is subject of disagreement.

 10. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg00058.html
 11. http://www.infodrom.org/projects/calendar/
 12. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg00115.html

GNU GPL and OPL. Tatsuya Kinoshita [13]wondered if the [14]Open
Publication License (OPL) is compatible with the [15]GNU GPL. He
quoted a paragraph from the OPL that seems to be incompatible with the
GPL. He would also like to see the Debian [16]web pages be
dual-licensed under both the OPL and the GNU GPL instead of only under
the OPL as it is currently.

 13. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0305/msg00003.html
 14. http://opencontent.org/openpub/
 15. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
 16. http://www.debian.org/

Splitting off Documentation. Andreas Tille [17]wondered if it is
documented when documentation should be split off of a package. Oliver
Elphick [18]explained that the point of splitting out a documentation
package is to reduce download time for people who want to install a
package without its documentation. This has to be balanced against the
load on the archive of having extra packages.

 17. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg00218.html
 18. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg00241.html

New Translation Effort in Poland. Bartosz Fenski [19]announced (in
Polish only) a new translation effort called [20]Polish Debian
Documentation Project (PDDP). There are no Debian developers in PDDP
yet, but this is likely to change. The main goal of this group is to
translate Debian documentation into Polish as well as to help
translating DWN. Currently, they are translating the [21]Debian
Reference.

 19. http://7thguard.net/news.php?id=2990
 20. http://debian.linux.org.pl/
 21. http://www.debian.org/doc/user-manuals#quick-reference

Confirmed Tag for the BTS. Anthony Towns [22]announced that there is
now a "confirmed" tag for maintainers to use with the bug tracking
system (BTS). The tag should be used to indicate that those bugs that
have been looked at, understood, and basically agreed with, but
haven't yet been fixed. Bugs marked "unreproducible" or "moreinfo"
generally can't be "confirmed". Bugs marked "help" could be depending
on what sort of help is required. The BTS [23]search form can be used
to list a package's confirmed or un-confirmed bugs as well as the
various other tags.

 22. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg00374.html
 23. http://www.debian.org/Bugs/

Explaining why a Package is not in Testing. Björn Stenberg [24]wrote a
[25]script that parses [26]update_excuses.html and
[27]update_output.txt and tries to give human-readable answers to
questions in the form "Why is package X not in testing yet?" The
script takes a package name and outputs the reasons why the package is
not in testing yet. For example, it explains that libbonoboui is
waiting for gnome-vfs2, which in turn is waiting for fam, etc.

 24. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg00350.html
 25. http://bjorn.haxx.se/debian/
 26. http://ftp-master.debian.org/testing/update_excuses.html
 27. http://ftp-master.debian.org/testing/update_output.txt

Status of Sarge Release Issues. Drew Scott Daniels [28]posted an
updated list of sarge release issues. This is a list of things to be
done before sarge can be released, with status information and an
estimated priority (of 1-3). Some of the issues listed include
[29]problems in testing, the [30]XFree86 status, [31]porting of
debian-installer, the possibility of using [32]Linux Kernel 2.6 in
sarge, and the [33]status of Java.

 28. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg00271.html
 29. http://ftp-master.debian.org/testing/testing_probs.html
 30. http://people.debian.org/~branden/xsf/
 31. http://people.debian.org/~mckinstry/ports-status.html
 32. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg00274.html
 33. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg00334.html

License problems with DBD::mysql? A [34]bug report from Steve Langasek
started a [35]discussion on whether Debian may distribute a
GPL-incompatible script which uses a free interpreter and free
libraries. Because the new libmysqlclient12 package is licensed under
the GPL, any GPL-incompatible application which depend on
libdbd-mysql-perl (DBD::mysql) would be in violation of the
libmysqlclient12 license.

 34. http://bugs.debian.org/189164
 35. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0304/msg00171.html

Using the GNU FDL against itself. Peter Galbraith [36]suggested to add
an invariant section to the Emacs info files that explains why
documentation authors should not use the [37]GNU Free Documentation
License (FDL). Brian M. Carlson [38]added that Debian can't legally
[39]distribute such an info document. Because the GNU FDL is
incompatible with the GPL, it is prohibited to even create an info
document from GNU FDL'd texinfo source.

 36. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0304/msg00181.html
 37. http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
 38. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0304/msg00205.html
 39. http://bugs.debian.org/183860

GNU Emacs containing non-free Components? Jérôme Marant [40]wondered
if [41]two [42]essays that are distributed with GNU Emacs, use a
non-free license. Both are distributed differently on the FSF web
pages, though. Some people say that these files are manifest documents
and not regular documentation, hence, the are permitted to be
non-modifiable.

 40. http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal-0304/msg00373.html
 41. http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html
 42. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.html

Discovering the used Character Encoding. Bob Hilliard [43]wondered
whether it is possible to determine what character encoding is used in
a document without manually scanning the entire file. Martin von
Loewis [44]explained that this can't be done automatically. If one
knows what text to expect, one can try a number of encodings, and see
which of the encodings gives the characters one expects. As a manual
procedure, this is best done with the help of
/usr/share/i18n/charmaps.

 43. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg00575.html
 44. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-0305/msg00582.html

Security Updates. You know the drill. Please make sure that you update
your systems if you have any of these packages installed.

 * [45]libgtop -- Buffer overflow.
 * [46]fuzz -- Insecure temporary file creation.

 45. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-301
 46. http://www.debian.org/security/2003/dsa-302

New or Noteworthy Packages. The following packages were added to the
unstable Debian archive recently or contain important updates.

 * [47]apt-doc -- Documentation for APT.
 * [48]flex-old -- Old versions of the fast lexical analyzer
   generator.
 * [49]pointless -- Presentation tool based on OpenGL.
 * [50]roundup -- Issue tracking system.
 * [51]xt-strategoxt -- Language transformation tools for
   programmers.
 * [52]zope-translationservice -- Location-aware translation service
   for Zope.

 47. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/doc/apt-doc.html
 48. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/flex-old.html
 49. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/pointless.html
 50. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/roundup.html
 51. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/xt-strategoxt.html
 52. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/web/zope-translationservice.html

Orphaned Packages. 29 packages were orphaned this week and require a
new maintainer. This makes a total of 190 orphaned packages. Many
thanks to the previous maintainers who contributed to the Free
Software community. Please see the [53]WNPP pages for the full list,
and please add a note to the bug report and retitle it to ITA: if you
plan to take over a package.

 53. http://www.debian.org/devel/wnpp/

 * [54]apcupsd -- APC UPS Power Management. ([55]Bug#192672)
 * [56]axyftp -- Graphical ftp program with Lesstif interface.
   ([57]Bug#192677)
 * [58]dotfile -- The Dotfile Generator tcsh module. ([59]Bug#192682)
 * [60]dvi2ps -- TeX DVI-driver for NTT jTeX, MulTeX and ASCII ptex.
   ([61]Bug#192686)
 * dvi2ps-fontdata -- Font data of Adobe Japanese fonts (futomin,
   futogo, jun101). ([62]Bug#192691)
 * [63]elvis -- Much improved "vi" editor with syntax highlighting.
   ([64]Bug#192673)
 * [65]equivs -- Circumventing Debian package dependencies.
   ([66]Bug#192678)
 * [67]fda -- C malloc debug library. ([68]Bug#192657)
 * [69]gps -- Remote gPS poller. ([70]Bug#192655)
 * [71]gtksql -- GTK front end to the postgresql database.
   ([72]Bug#192667)
 * [73]hpscanpbm -- HP ScanJet scanning utility. ([74]Bug#192661)
 * [75]levee -- Very small vi clone. ([76]Bug#192651)
 * [77]libparagui1.0 -- Standard themes for the widget set library.
   ([78]Bug#192681)
 * [79]libsdl-mm0.1 -- Development files for SDL C++ wrapper.
   ([80]Bug#192683)
 * [81]libtest-unit-perl -- Unit testing interface for Perl.
   ([82]Bug#192649)
 * [83]lookup -- Utility to search text files quickly and powerfully.
   ([84]Bug#192687)
 * [85]lprngtool -- GUI frontend to LPRng based /etc/printcap.
   ([86]Bug#192653)
 * [87]mosix -- Mosix development files (static library and header
   files). ([88]Bug#192697)
 * [89]mosixview -- Graphical tool to administrate a mosix cluster.
   ([90]Bug#192696)
 * [91]ntaim -- Curses-based AIM client. ([92]Bug#192650)
 * [93]opengate -- H.323 voice over IP gatekeeper. ([94]Bug#192453)
 * [95]propaganda-debian -- Propaganda background image volume for
   Debian. ([96]Bug#192656)
 * [97]psh -- Interactive shell with the power of perl.
   ([98]Bug#192652)
 * [99]sup -- Software Upgrade Protocol implementation.
   ([100]Bug#192670)
 * [101]timidity-patches -- Instrument files for software-only MIDI
   sequencer. ([102]Bug#192669)
 * [103]xisp -- User-friendly X interface to pppd/chat.
   ([104]Bug#192679)
 * [105]xjdic -- Japanese-English dictionary search program.
   ([106]Bug#192688)
 * [107]xlogmaster -- Program to monitor logfiles. ([108]Bug#192676)
 * [109]xpvm -- Graphical console and monitor for PVM.
   ([110]Bug#192886)

 54. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/apcupsd.html
 55. http://bugs.debian.org/192672
 56. http://packages.debian.org/stable/net/axyftp-lesstif.html
 57. http://bugs.debian.org/192677
 58. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/utils/dotfile.html
 59. http://bugs.debian.org/192682
 60. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/tex/dvi2ps.html
 61. http://bugs.debian.org/192686
 62. http://bugs.debian.org/192691
 63. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/editors/elvis.html
 64. http://bugs.debian.org/192673
 65. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/equivs.html
 66. http://bugs.debian.org/192678
 67. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/fda.html
 68. http://bugs.debian.org/192657
 69. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/gps.html
 70. http://bugs.debian.org/192655
 71. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/non-us/gtksql.html
 72. http://bugs.debian.org/192667
 73. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/hpscanpbm.html
 74. http://bugs.debian.org/192661
 75. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/editors/levee.html
 76. http://bugs.debian.org/192651
 77. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/libparagui1.0.html
 78. http://bugs.debian.org/192681
 79. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/libs/libsdl-mm0.1.html
 80. http://bugs.debian.org/192683
 81. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/perl/libtest-unit-perl.html
 82. http://bugs.debian.org/192649
 83. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/lookup.html
 84. http://bugs.debian.org/192687
 85. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/lprngtool.html
 86. http://bugs.debian.org/192653
 87. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/mosix.html
 88. http://bugs.debian.org/192697
 89. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/mosixview.html
 90. http://bugs.debian.org/192696
 91. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/ntaim.html
 92. http://bugs.debian.org/192650
 93. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/comm/opengate.html
 94. http://bugs.debian.org/192453
 95. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/graphics/propaganda-debian.html
 96. http://bugs.debian.org/192656
 97. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/shells/psh.html
 98. http://bugs.debian.org/192652
 99. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/sup.html
 100. http://bugs.debian.org/192670
 101. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/timidity-patches.html
 102. http://bugs.debian.org/192669
 103. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/xisp.html
 104. http://bugs.debian.org/192679
 105. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/text/xjdic.html
 106. http://bugs.debian.org/192688
 107. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/xlogmaster.html
 108. http://bugs.debian.org/192676
 109. http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/xpvm.html
 110. http://bugs.debian.org/192886

Want to continue reading DWN? Please help us create this newsletter.
We still need more volunteer writers who investigate the Debian
community and report about events in the community. Please see the
[111]contributing page to find out how to help. We're looking forward
to receiving your mail at [112]dwn@debian.org.

 111. http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/contributing
 112. mailto:dwn@debian.org